WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii) review

" Have you ever sat on your couch, Wii Remote in hand, wishing you could use it to scrub the dirty hind end of a cow? Probably not. But WarioWare: Smooth Moves allows you to do so. Even after playing the rather enjoyable GameCube incarnation of WarioWare, there seemed to be a lingering feeling that this series should have remained in GBA/DS form. Smooth Moves is bold in it's assertion that you'll enjoy the large number of extremely strange tasks it asks you to perform.
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Have you ever sat on your couch, Wii Remote in hand, wishing you could use it to scrub the dirty hind end of a cow? Probably not. But WarioWare: Smooth Moves allows you to do so. Even after playing the rather enjoyable GameCube incarnation of WarioWare, there seemed to be a lingering feeling that this series should have remained in GBA/DS form. Smooth Moves is bold in it's assertion that you'll enjoy the large number of extremely strange tasks it asks you to perform.

Splitting the into various character-driven plots, Smooth Moves throws a minimum of 15 micro-games your way. Each of these storylines are pushed forward by the usual suspects and none of them require any prior knowledge of the preceding releases. Each of the provided stories end with a "boss". Said "bosses" range from clever to inane. On the clever side, we find a short but sweet Star Fox variant in which the player has full control of the Arwing and comes upon a pimped out version of the ingeniously named peripheral, the R.obotic O.perating B.uddy, who happens to be wielding a Zapper. It's easy to get lost in such details. But the "Retro-inspired" characters 8-Volt and 18-Volt only take up a small portion of the game's overall content, so don't expect the aggressive advertising to be shoved down your throat continously. On the unfortunate end we find a "boss" which consists of laying your remote down on a flat surface while you watch topping pour onto a sandwhich, then snapping the remote upwards as the top bun is set in place. The majority of the micro games are intuitive enough that you'll wish that they would continue, but others are monotonous and seem to be set in place for a singular reason: Nintendo wants you to make an ass of yourself while performing the required Wii Mote tasks.

I personally don't like the idea of switching the controler's position in my hand every 2-seconds, but it still makes for a spontaneous synergy of fast-paced fun and player involvement. There are too many times where the Wii will lose track of the Wii Remote signal, or just won't pick up some of the required exaggerated movements, which is frustrating. None of that should be a deal-breaker, for anyone. If anything is unattractive about the game, it is probably the fact that almost everyone will beat it before hitting the two-hour mark. But in that time, you'll unlock each of the micro games you have played along with some nifty additional content. One allows for a moderately entertaining can-shooting ode to Duck Hunt. Another has you trying to keep a steady hand as shapes fall onto a small paddle and you try and keep them on without missing any, or having them slide off when held at tilt. There are others, each entertaining and playable in their own right.

Upon completion of the story mode, you'll have all the games you've already played at your disposal. This will allow you to filter through each of the micro-games' multiple stages, master each game, and earn ribbons on the ones you complete the set number of times, with the allotted four lives.

There are over two-hundred micro games included in Smooth Moves. Some of them seem completely arbitrary, requesting that you perform strange tasks such as shredding or stacking papers. In fact, only a couple of them carry any real weight in the form of something you might actually want to play an extended version of. A 3D Balloon Fighters comes to mind. Others are as mundane as moving the Wii Mote downwards as a Super Nintendo game floats over the console's cartridge slot.

The visual and audio presentation make for two very good reasons why Smooth Moves warrants a purchase. The vibrant displays through each of the story-mode's different characters contains a different layout in-between micro game content. In one, you'll find Jimmi, a hippy who is way into disco music, dancing with an ensemble of cats. Each of the character-driven episodes have introductory and conclusion cinematics and various selections of voice acting for beating a micro game and a singular murmured comment for defeat. As you progress torwards each boss and "speed up" flashes across the screen in vibrant display, the music amplifies into a louder, more distorted progression of the same tune. It's really quite enveloping, once you've been subdued into the trance-like gameplay mechanisms and have a feel for the huge assortment of different positions to hold the Wii Mote in. These are relayed to you by what could possibly be the most humerus game announcer of all-time, with a deep and relaxed tone, he speaks very seriously and with exaggeration upon the silly comments which follow the outlined gameplay.

The transition from portable to home console may have been successful in WarioWare's GameCube installment, but with the release of Smooth Moves, playing WarioWare any other way is out of the question. Perhaps the fluttering feeling I took from the experience of trying the series for the first time is gone, but the enchantment of the game's humor is only on the incline, and the macro games have also hit their stride. A few years back, I thought it would be impossible to enjoy the series on any other platform than the DS. Am delighted to report that the Wii adaption of Mario's lesser form is tight as can be. There isn't any reason not to buy Smooth Moves, if you own a Wii. Enthusiastic, token Nintendo fare.

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